


The Mind Fuck

by amoama



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-04
Updated: 2011-12-04
Packaged: 2017-10-26 21:42:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/288219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amoama/pseuds/amoama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Since I've been loving you, I'm about to lose my worried mind." Castiel is determined to bring peace and freewill to Heaven but the Winchesters are no longer involved and Cas is taken prisoner by Raphael. In Cas's absence Dean begins to dream of him, his frustration and longing seeping into his dreams. As Cas’s torture becomes worse so do Dean’s dreams until finally Dean realises he must brave Heaven and all the angels to find Cas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mind Fuck

**Author's Note:**

> Sexual situations, brief dub-con, explicit torture, dreamt threesome with girl!Cas, flagrant misuse of one wedding dress and strong language.
> 
> Quotes come from three Led Zeppelin songs, Ramble On, Since I’ve Been Loving You, and Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You. Additional quotes in the play scene come from Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. I’ve also quoted Mahmoud Darwish’s incredible opening to his prose poems, Memory for Forgetfulness at the beginning and throughout.

“Out of one dream, another dream is born:

 _-Are you well? I mean, are you alive?_

 _-How did you know I was just this moment laying my head on your knee to sleep?_

 _-Because you woke me up when you stirred in my belly. I knew then I was your coffin. Are you alive? Can you hear me?_

 _-Does it happen much, that you are awakened from one dream by another, itself the interpretation of the dream?_

 _-Here it is, happening to you and to me. Are you alive?_

 _-Almost_

 _-And have the devils cast their spell on you?_

 _-I don’t know, but in time there’s room for death._

 _-Don’t die completely._

 _-I’ll try not to._

 _-Don’t die at all._

 _-I’ll try not to.”_

 _(Mahmoud Darwish, “Memory for Forgetfulness”)_

 

When is that last moment before a car crash when you can swerve and miss, or is it that you hardly slept the night before and so the crash was already inevitable?

In the map of a marriage where does the divorcee track their mistakes back to? What instant in the road of tiny choices led to the day when you finally admit that there are imposters in your marriage, people you don’t know and find it hard to love? Is one of them you?

Perchance you were never married and don’t sleep? Were never in a relationship even? Perhaps there was always something more urgent, more ‘life and death’ on the horizon holding you hostage so that you never acknowledged the one thing keeping you going.

And if you are an angel while he is a man and the reasons for being around him just got locked in hell for eternity while he moved on with another family? What about if Heaven descends into civil war and you stand against a tide so strong all you can do is take a deep breath and hope you can suck in enough air to survive it?

Cas stands in the rain watching Dean inside a diner, leaning on the counter to pay, talking casually with the cashier, clutching his pie. Some things don’t change, like Cas watching Dean and Dean liking pie; so Cas wonders what could have been done differently, what other map could he have followed? Could he have mapped Dean himself more carefully, more extensively? If he had chosen to, he could have leaned over any table in any of those thousands of diners and told him, “Dean, I like you as much as you like pie.” But somehow he never thought of the right words and anyway - was he not saying it just as well with every sacrifice he had ever made? So he watches in the rain, heart pounding in his chest, thinking could I have swerved? Because now the car is crashing and Cas doesn’t know how to get clear of the road. And what is more, he doesn’t know if he was supposed to.

 

 **ONE: Now I Smell the Rain**

 

Castiel faces Raphael across the plane. Half of existence and worlds of experience lie between them – they’re so far apart they can barely conceive of each other, even as their eyes meet.

They are both colossal beings. Raphael is all fire and scorching heat. His wings beat down incessantly making the air thunder with his presence. One of his heads is a panther and his narrow eyes glare at Castiel with loathing and vitriol. He is drooling openly in anticipation of what is to come.

Castiel watches him, his face awash with bright, searing blue light. He knows now what he has to do, how to win.

So far this has been a war of attrition. Castiel has fought and fought to keep his humanity, and that has meant holding back, even with his enemies. He has not wanted to kill angels. His fight has been to win them over, to persuade, to hold faith. For every angel he has won over, Raphael has killed at least five. Raphael has been merciless and this is what the host of heaven understands. Millennia with a vengeful Father have not been forgotten and too many angels view Raphael’s actions as a signal that God has His mojo back; that at last He is ready to get angry again with His petty humans; that the time of forgiveness is over. Castiel has fought them, blow for blow; arguing, persuading, even as he parries their strikes. _This is not God’s will, it is not freely chosen. This is Raphael, playing for power, tipping the balance. There is no God in his greed._ Castiel would like to think the angels should know better. He’d like to be angry at them. But he knows that he did not know much better either. That he may never have known better, if he had not ventured into Hell and gripped tightly to the soul of a righteous man. So he continues to spare his fellow angels, his enemies that have not been able to understand humanity, as he has come to, and it has cost him dearly in this war.

Now though he is ready.

He is unsure if he can accomplish what he needs to, if he can withstand Raphael for long enough, but he feels relief at having reached this point. He won’t need to send others into battle any longer. He can fight alone for this victory.

He looks over his shoulder at Balthazar, reminded that he is not alone quite yet. Balthazar looks back at him with anguish. Castiel knows he is praying and that he hates himself for it, that he blames Cas for pulling him back into this war and resents him for leaving him out of the solution. They have talked about it for weeks now, wrestling back and forth, strategising and preparing, Balthazar protesting every stage, begging Castiel to reconsider. Perhaps they have been preparing for centuries. Perhaps this is why they exist. Castiel knows this is why he was brought back. God knew that stopping the apocalypse would not be enough. Not for the angels. Not until they accept their freedom. This is Castiel’s last attempt - his most desperate. This is the one that will work.

Yet even now, with Raphael a breath away, Balthazar is imploring him to rethink; his shimmering presence is keening towards Castiel, heartbreak written in every line. Castiel has never seen an angel look so human and it’s strange because Balthazar makes such a crappy human. He doesn’t seem to notice but there are tears falling from all six of his eyes, his three faces all pictures of perfect horror. Castiel looks at him calmly and blesses his friend in the holy language. He reaches out an arm to grip his hand briefly. “Watch out for him, won’t you?” He asks. It hurts to talk now about Dean, and Castiel sees how it offends Balthazar. But he can’t not ask, not elicit the promise one final time.

At some point Cas realises, Dean lost track of the big picture. Cas thinks he understands it. The big picture cost Dean so much. It cost him Sam – and Sam’s soul. Cas thinks that stopping the apocalypse was the end for Dean. Now all Dean sees is what’s right in front of him, his brother, his grandfather, Eve, the next case. Cas wants it that way. Why should Dean have to deal with heaven’s problems? Angels are ageless and full of eternal grace – why would they look to two boys from Lawrence, Kansas for answers? But Cas wants to be faithful to the truth Dean showed him. He stayed away because he knew Dean was done but he always knew the work wasn’t. Not with Raphael still wielding so much power.

Castiel and Balthazar have discussed it endlessly: how to keep the Winchesters safe, how to protect them from Raphael so they cannot be used against Castiel. It is perhaps the most important part of their strategising because Castiel knows he could not withstand it. He knows that if they are threatened he will do anything, _anything,_ to save them. He has already done the unthinkable. Fallen, become graceless. There is nothing he won’t do. Even now, even though he feels further from Dean than ever before. Castiel cannot trust himself with this. He’d rather die than let his friends down. So he must trust Balthazar. _Raphael will lie, he will tell me he has them, he will tempt me to fail. I must trust that this has not happened. If it does, we may lose everything._ Balthazar has promised over and over. They have redoubled the strength of the sigils and cast protective rites over the Impala and Bobby’s house and every motel in the Midwest just to be safe. Castiel even went to Lisa’s late one night and said the rites there. The Winchesters are well protected Cas knows and yet he still asks, finally, “Watch out for him, won’t you?” And he doesn’t mean ‘them’ this time, he means Dean, _his Dean,_ and he doesn’t just mean his safety, he means his soul. Balthazar bows one head in acquiescence and winks three left eyes gently. In doing so he blesses Castiel in return.

Castiel turns back to face Raphael, eyes glistening. He allows himself to feel his grace flowing freely through his entire being. Slowly he begins to pulsate with the strength of it, the vibrations of light make him a blur in the eyes of his brothers. For one long moment he dwells purely in his grace and feels calm faith seal over his heart until, with an unearthly sigh he shudders and shrivels into his human form, cramming as much grace as he can muster into the body of Jimmy Novak which is waiting unconsciously in some far corner of an abandoned warehouse.

*

Slowly Castiel opens his human eyes; his vision is so dull he again feels the loss of light like a bereavement. He tilts his head and stretches his neck upwards stiffly. He has not been so used to this body lately but its familiarity is already beginning to comfort him. This body has been through a lot, has survived a lot. It feels like a friend. Cas. It makes him recognisable, beloved by the human beings he loves. It may have exploded the odd time or two but he trusts it. He remembers the weight of it, how the hands, arms, legs, move exactly as he intends them to. He likes to shrug into it as Jimmy pulled on the comforting familiarity of the trench coat he still wears. Cas is grateful for it.

He finally notices that Raphael has joined him in human form and is waiting for him. Castiel holds his hands out in front of him, palms turned upwards in submission and walks towards him. Raphael looks at him with vicious contempt. There is no victory in his eyes, he is not yet sure, but Castiel can sense his excitement, his hope that this is the turning point and that Castiel is signing his own death warrant. They both know the score, they know that the battle will be a battle of their wills. Cas is reminded of Sam when he said Yes to the Devil, knowing that Lucifer knew about the rings, knowing that it would just be Sam and Lucifer fighting it out in his head. Castiel takes heart from the thought - Sam’s humanity had won out against Lucifer’s inhuman strength. He must find the same strength, the same humanity.

Raphael quickly binds Castiel’s hands with heavy chains that he solders together with one bare hand. Castiel lets him. He is silent while Raphael murmurs heavy words that bind his Grace into this body. There will be no escape to heaven now, no blessed relief. The chains Raphael has used are old, as old as the Fall, and they are unbreakable. They are the same chains used to bind angels in Hell. He lets Raphael blindfold him with his own tie. Castiel feels small and foolish for submitting to this. Most likely the angels will forget about him and all this will be for nothing, but maybe, just maybe, if he holds out long enough, if he keeps his faith and his humanity in the face of Raphael’s corrupt cruelty, Raphael will be the one who crumples, the one who falls.

Everything Raphael has done in this war has been to force Castiel’s submission. Castiel knows Raphael is stronger. All the angels know it. At any time he could kill Castiel, force him onto bended knee. But he cannot make him say the words. Castiel will never say that Raphael should rule in Heaven, or that he was wrong to help stop the apocalypse.

They both know that killing Castiel is a risk. Twice now he’s been killed, once by Raphael himself, and once by the devil. Raphael cannot risk him being brought back a third time. It would be irrefutable proof that God’s will favoured Castiel -although personally Cas thinks twice was enough to prove that particular point. Raphael is walking a thin line seeking to subjugate Castiel without being able to put him down for good.

Cas has been dodging him for months now, avoiding giving Raphael the opportunity to use his strength against him, but it is costing him dearly, the Host whisper that Castiel is too weak to face Raphael; that he would yield the second they meet. So Cas has chosen this final play: to expose himself to Raphael’s might and show the angels that they need not submit to strength for its own sake. It’s dangerous and perhaps he’ll die and not come back this time. Cas doesn’t know anything for sure anymore but his final act of faith in his long absent father has to be believing he was brought back for a reason; so he goes to face Raphael and he feels the metal bind his hands and he waits for what is to come.

*

He is in a damp cellar in complete darkness. The tie is still around his eyes but he can tell it is utterly black in his prison. The cell is small. Cas can’t stand up. He has to sit with his knees next to his chest just to fit. He can hear scurrying but doesn’t know what kinds of creatures are keeping him company. His hands are still chained together. Water comes down from a chute above his head; he can feel the small pipe next to his left ear. It has been dripping since he got here but now it gushes and the water is cold and heavy and dirty. It settles around his feet and bottom and seeps into his clothing. He tries not to think about how uncomfortable he is. How he has only been here a few hours and already his whole body is screaming at him to shift positions. His knees are up against a grate of bars and from the sound of it when he was shoved in here there is a heavy stone door behind the grate. Cas leans his head back and tries to stop thinking about it.

*

No one knows where I am, he thinks. He remembers his earnest conversations with Balthazar. _Don’t tell him where I am. Don’t let Dean know what’s happening. He may try to rescue me and walk right into Raphael’s hands. Don’t tell him Balthazar. I don’t want him to know where I am._ But Cas doesn’t know where he is and he doubts Balthazar does either. Somewhere on earth he thinks. Somewhere in time. And the loneliness is excruciating.

*

Cas opens his eyes to the darkness and feels his exile like a physical pain. He is conserving his saliva and trying not to swallow and so exile tastes dry and sharp on his chapped lips. Now he knows loneliness, knows that it feels like hitting his head back against the stones behind because he can’t get the emptiness out of his head. That it is there when blood trickles down his neck, prickling and sticky and beyond the reach of his bound hands. Loneliness is his heart beating futilely in his breast when that which can comfort it is so unreachable. He thinks about Dean and how he would comfort him and Cas knows Dean wouldn’t need to do anything special, that he would just show up and go along with whatever Dean was doing, eating in a diner, playing pool, driving in the Impala. We would just keep each other company, Cas thinks, and then he starts to hum slowly,

 _Babe, baby, baby, I'm gonna leave you  
I said baby, you know I'm gonna leave you  
I'll leave you when the summertime  
Leave you when the summer comes a-rollin'  
Leave you when the summer comes along._

Cas smiles to himself, hearing Dean’s voice soaring loudly along with the cassette player, and he pictures himself half-human, half-asleep in the back seat of the car, wind on his face, eyes closed, Dean’s enthusiastic voice surrounding him. And Cas sings to himself as though it is goodbye, _baby I’m gonna leave you, you know I’m gonna leave you._

It feels so long ago. Another lifetime. Even before he came to this prison the days sitting in the Impala with Dean, working cases, _chatting shit,_ were long gone. Dean would say it was the time before Sam went to hell because that’s how Dean measures time. Cas would say it was before the most significant event in history failed to happen, before he was left with the clean up, the problem of what happens when the pre-destined fate of the world doesn’t come to pass.

He’d be so pleased Cas thinks, he converted me to his music, and he sees Dean smiling at him and he smiles back. For a second he is miles from his prison cell and he sings determinedly for as long as he can, sheer will power focusing on convincing himself he is on a long car journey - not trapped in this hell.

*

A week later and he’s desperate for Raphael to come and deal out some pain. Anything that lets him move. His muscles seized for 3 days solidly and now they ache with a cramping pain that is making Cas weep at least once an hour. The only reason he knows it was three days is that he counted the entire time. He didn’t know what to do in the face of such unbearable discomfort. The pain makes him feel sick to his stomach, it’s too much. It makes him lift his chained wrists to his neck and reach his hands around the back to choke himself. Not that he could kill himself like this – or at all, that sin is so grave he can barely fathom it and it’s not as though he has an angel sword to hand – and yet he can’t stop himself trying. It blurs the pain for a few moments.

He tries to focus on the things he loves about humanity, to store up memories and reasons that he can use when Raphael really begins testing him. He struggles to make pictures stick in his head but finds that lyrics (from songs he doesn’t even know the names of) have planted in his mind and are stuck there. He feels jolts of accomplishment whenever he can get through a whole song and then spends hours guessing at the titles. The lyrics often make him laugh, but the sound comes out hollow and he wonders if he is already insane.

 _Leaves are fallin' all around, time I was on my way  
Thanks to you, I'm much obliged for such a pleasant stay  
but now it's time for me to go, the autumn moon lights my way_

The words make Raphael laugh too. He opens the grate himself and pulls Castiel out by the feet, discarding his cringing body in a heap by the door. He looks down over him, grinning maniacally, “Now Castiel, don’t be idiotic. Your stay is far, far from over. We haven’t even dispensed with the pleasantries yet. I would be so disappointed if you were to leave already.”

 **TWO. The Chapter of Simple Miracles**

Dean is going crazy dreaming about Cas. He’s hiding it pretty well he thinks but he’s not really sleeping. He’s been calling, _praying,_ for him for weeks now. Cas hasn’t answered at all and Dean is pissed.

Once, a little over a week ago, he’d been walking out of a diner, pie in hand, and he’d thought he’d seen him standing on the other side of the highway. It had been raining and Cas had looked really downtrodden and just overwhelmingly sad. The rain made it impossible to tell but he could well have been crying even. It was really worrying seeing him like that, Dean had moved his hand up to protect his eyes from the rain and began to move towards Cas, shouting his name. In that instant, Cas had disappeared and Dean felt stupid yelling Cas’s name in the rain to the empty street.

He’s dreamed about Cas every night since then. It’s fucking with his mind.

*

It’s not like it’s the first time he’s dreamed about Cas. For Pete’s sake, the guy’s dream-stalked him enough times, starting with that time Cas told him about Lilith and the seals and Lucifer being real and rising. But the apocalypse stuff isn’t what sticks with him now. It's the dream thing that stays with him.

Dean thinks about how he’d woken up that night (in his dream) and seen Cas casually leaning against the kitchen counter and how he had been drawn towards him, by anger and by the desire to provoke. Funny, he thinks now, his fearlessness in the face of this angelic warrior. Partly his usual cock-surety when trapped in a corner with some devil. His old demon-baiting dance of words hiding anything else he might be feeling. But it was also something else, like he knew already that he could say what he liked to this angel. That it was safe to rile and question and demand. To answer, _Yeah, why didn’t you fight?_ When Cas growls, _I’m a soldier._

That night Castiel (and really he was still Castiel at that point) hadn’t given an inch. He had listened to Dean like someone who knew what he would say before he said it. Who was perfectly willing to put Dean in his place, but was also enjoying the experience, _enjoying_ Dean mouthing off at him, admiring his spirit while curbing his wilful misunderstanding. Dean replays it in his mind, I’m not here to perch on your shoulder and it makes him grateful for all the things this angel turned out to be that were more than he ever expected. Nothing fluffy, nothing docile or lap-doggy. Castiel was condescending, and fuming, and highly provokable. He was scruffy and intense. He was passive and powerful and amused all at the same time. Dean couldn’t help himself. He pushed and pushed, _If there even is a God._ He remembers spouting on and on at Cas and Cas looking away and holding his hands up in a shrug that was more to himself, perhaps reminding himself not to engage _this time._

That night Cas had said just enough for Dean to make the leaps himself, understanding dawning about Lilith and the witnesses. Cas had told him what he needed to know. Something he had been doing less of lately. Perhaps now Cas really didn’t need Dean to know anything. But Dean wanted the conversation all the same. How was it possible that Cas could trust him with the apocalypse but not with what came after?

It strikes Dean that this is why he is having so many dreams of this first dream. The doors to Dean’s world had been blown open when Cas arrived; he was only days out of hell, unsteady on his feet and it seemed as though heaven was disclosing all its secrets to him. Now he wasn’t in on it at all and he was grateful and hurt at the same time. Besides why wouldn’t the dickhead just tell him what the hell’s going on up there?

He remembers how Cas had turned to him, right before the punchline, _and Lucifer walks free,_ holding Dean’s eyes in his own, encompassing his disbelief and his panic. A stare that grounds him, Dean thinks. That allows him to think and feel in safety. Castiel knew how to hold him with his eyes from the beginning. Dean remembers clinging to his scorn in the face of that unblinking certainty. He’s still pretty proud of himself for it. _Well, bang up job so far._ Of course, Cas had wiped him off the map after that. _You think the armies of Heaven should just follow you around?_ He had gotten so close into his personal space that Dean wanted to hold his breath just to give them that much more room. Yet even as Castiel had spoken, _There’s a bigger picture here,_ Dean had loosened his grip on the rest of the world. Castiel’s body was so close, his eyes were blazing out two inches from his own, and Dean’s world seemed to be made up only of him and Castiel –and it seemed crowded. _You should show me some respect._ Dean remembers wondering momentarily how you could do anything but respect the fierce, unkempt being before him. And the moment he thought it, Castiel was gone and Dean woke up with a start.

That had been the beginning.

He’s dreamt of that night often since then. At first, just replaying it, pondering the significance of having an angel come and speak to you in dreams. Dean, who stoically refused to let people get too close, now had someone with access to his mind wandering in and out of his consciousness. Total fucking mind fuck. And the really weird thing was that he didn’t really mind about it. Apart from the odd, _Get outta my head, you dick._ He really hasn’t made much of a fuss about it. Most of the time he feels an odd kind of relief on seeing Cas at all. Like he’s been grinding his teeth without realising it and seeing Cas allows him to let up for a while. Whatever it is, Dean doesn’t like to analyse it. What is the point? It is what it is.

It happens so many times the same way. The flutter wakes him. He bats his eyes open, twice. And then he pauses. ‘Cas, am I dreaming you?’

In those early days he had always known, once he woke up, if it had been a Cas dream – there was a texture to it that felt like ‘more’ and it was just so beyond his experience or knowledge of Cas he knew he couldn’t have made it up. Now though, he’s less sure. Cas has been around for so long, has been through so much with them, Dean thinks perhaps he really could dream Cas was constructing the dream. Dean worries his mind is capable of concocting Cas’s _presence_ in his dreams.

*

Dean replays all of his Cas-engineered dreams in his head. He thinks a lot about the dream by the lake. He wonders if Cas found him by the lake or put him there. He thinks Cas took him and he likes the thought that the angel took him somewhere so peaceful even when he himself was in turmoil. This was the dream before Cas was ‘disappeared’ back up to heaven to be tortured into submission. He hasn’t talked to Cas much about what he went through up there, it is just another of the things Dean feels guilty about, another of the endless sacrifices Cas has made for him. He sees them together looking out at the lake, Cas talking urgently and firmly, and yet so calm, just minutes before being ripped from his vessel. Dean feels awe for his angel all over again.

Sometimes when he hasn’t been able to sleep he takes his mind back to the lake and pictures himself fishing silently for hour upon peaceful hour as he drifts towards sleep. Sometimes Cas sits beside him, sometimes he doesn’t. When Dean wakes up, if he remembers the dream at all, he wonders if Cas really did sit beside him, accompanying him in his dream or not. Then he remembers that he’s angry at Cas and that Cas is a dick.

*

Dean daydreams obsessively about yelling at Cas. It feels familiar and good. Fighting with Cas comes up there with hunting and getting laid, in the how-to-know-you’re-alive stakes. In his head, Dean is on a roll. He rants at Cas for being MIA for a whole year, for not coming to tell him about Sam being alive, for not coming to see him at all, for holding out on all the crazy that’s going down in Heaven, for being against Sam’s soul, for using him and Sam as pawns in his heavenly war games, for being a bad friend, for being a dick.

In Dean’s head Cas waits it out.

Dean. _Dean._ I’m a soldier again now. _This fight you can’t be a part of._

Castiel’s eyes hold Dean, Dean feels the blood boiling in his hands and realises his fists are clenched. Had he really been about to hit Cas? _Again_. He flexes his fingers and breathes out.

 _You can tell me Cas, give it to me straight._ Cas smiles at him, head tilting reflexively.

 _Try not to die, Dean, alright? I’ll try not to as well._

 _You still believe in free will don’t you Dean?_

 _Don’t fight me Dean. Don’t dream of me in anger._

 _Take me out of the fight Dean. Dream me away. I’ll go with you._

Dean doesn’t know why he imagines Cas saying these things but they land in his mind fully formed and run in circles round his head.

*

The words linger in Cas’s head, soothing him. Everything here feels unreal. Like a dream, a nightmare. He sees himself more alive in Dean’s dream then he may ever be again. But angels don’t dream, surely. They use them, shape them but it’s not the same. How can you dream if you don’t sleep? For an angel to dream feels too much like falling.

Cas knows you don’t have to be asleep to dream – that is, to imagine, to desire – he saw it in Anna, saw her drift from the other angels, saw longing cloud her being. He didn’t know at the time how she could have done it, what could have called to her so strongly that she stepped off the edge. He didn’t know how easy it would be.

Some days he’s thought he would give anything to close his eyes and be lost to his dreams. In his dreams he would meet his Father once more and bathe in his light. In his dreams he would talk to God, tell Him about Dean, tell Him everything and laugh. He thinks sometimes that dreaming is the only way he will see Him again. But he doesn’t step off the edge because he fears that powerlessness and that brokenness.

And then there are the other dreams - which Cas knows are not called ‘wishes’ but rather ‘fantasies’. The things he catches himself imagining when they’re both fully awake, when Dean is standing right in front of him, grinning at his own inane quip, or frowning over some inner demon, _or just bending over the boot of his car._ These are the dreams where Cas suddenly feels that the twelve inches of space between them are an ocean and that this encumbering body he wears is the most honest thing about him.

At first the thoughts that came to him shocked him. He thought they were the reflexes of the vessel. Chemicals reacting, blood responding. But the tremble in his wings couldn’t be denied. He pictures himself running a hand down Dean’s arm, slowly, playfully. He thinks of back and chest and muscle. He thinks of eyes and neck and jaw. He sees his tongue roam slowly over them and wonders if he’d be allowed to bite.

Usually at this point he remembers that he’s day dreaming and that Dean may hate to think his mind even went there.

Cas hasn’t thought this way about other humans and he hasn’t wondered why not. This is how he was made. Fearfully and wonderfully and with a burning desire to extend his hand and touch Dean Winchester. He holds back because he’s an angel and because Dean is Dean -which means to say Cas is proud and scared and doesn’t know if reality matches the dream.

*

Dreaming should be just one more tool of communication for Cas. Like a radio or a TV screen - a way to reach out to the humans. He is not one of those angels who makes human dreams their battleground. He has brothers and sisters who have spent lifetimes in human dreams warring the demons there who seek to make it their domain. Cas never saw the appeal, never respected the danger until he saw how the nightmares clung to the waking Dean, how his eyes carried an anguish played out in his sleeping consciousness.

*

Dean doesn’t know what the hell’s going on in his dreams anymore. He stops calling for Cas in the daytime though. He no longer believes he’ll get answers that way.

 **THREE: The Autumn Moon Lights My Way.**

Cas is a bloody mess. He can’t hear what Raphael is saying, even though it’s more like screaming. All he hears is Led Zeppelin. He concentrates hard on remembering the words perfectly, pulling them from the recess of his mind. He couldn’t have known when Dean played this song the first time that this is what he would cling to but somehow it is. He wonders how often Dean has used it to keep himself sane.

The room he’s in is dark. The odd candle here and there lights certain instruments on a long table up against one wall. It feels damp like a cave and looks like it has been used for torture for centuries. Castiel sees how it would appeal to Raphael’s sense of gravitas, steeped in history and experience, however sordid and evil. He was never the archangel with the greatest imagination. (One of the reasons why Zachariah was always so useful.) Raphael probably hates this. His righteousness must revolt just being here and yet, Cas knows, this is why he’s chosen it. Raphael sees it as one more way to cause Cas suffering. Pain is inevitable in this setting.

Cas closes his eyes, reaches for the words.

 _Leaves are falling all around, It's time I was on my way._  
Cas isn’t falling. Instead he gets hoisted up by his feet, hung upside down.  
 _Thanks to you, I'm much obliged for such a pleasant stay._  
The lashes of the whips sting his skin. His back hurts beyond belief and he thinks at least seven pints of blood must be racing round his head.

 _But now it's time for me to go. The autumn moon lights my way._  
Someone plays with a silver knife, making small cuts down his arms. It stings as the knife starts at his ankle and traces down the side of his leg, over his hip, jutting further into his side, stopping finally at his armpit, his arms dangling below almost to the floor.  
 _For now I smell the rain, and with it pain, and it's headed my way._  
The knife pushes in deeper and Cas cries out to the Heavens. He barely notices he’s doing it.  
 _Sometimes I grow so tired, but I know I've got one thing I got to do..._  
His hands touch the floor beneath him and he feels his own blood pooling around them.  
He wants to die. A thousand times he wishes it.  
 _Ramble On, And now's the time, the time is now, to sing my song._  
He wants to free himself even though he knows it’s impossible.

He forces himself to continue the song.  
 _I'm goin' 'round the world, I got to find my girl, on my way.  
I've been this way ten years to the day, Ramble On,  
Gotta find the queen of all my dreams. _

He doesn’t understand the words anymore but he knows he shouldn’t stop.

 _Got no time for spreadin' roots, The time has come to be gone._  
They lower him onto a rack and beat at the soles of his feet with a club. He feels small bones and tendons in his feet breaking.  
 _And to our health we drank a thousand times, it's time to Ramble On._  
He wonders if they will heal him or if he will have to do it himself. He wonders if he can.

 _Mine's a tale that can't be told, my freedom I hold dear._  
He tries to hear Dean’s voice tunelessly yell-singing the anthem but he can’t get it. He is most frightened by the sound of his own voice howling in agony. Already it is out of his control.  
 _How years ago in days of old, when magic filled the air._  
The blood runs into his eyes, and runs up his nose into his skull. His brain feels like it is swimming in blood, all he tastes is blood.  
 _T'was in the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair._  
The beatings, like the words, seem random to him, catching his ear, his eyes, the back of his head, his jaw, his lips, his nose.  
 _But Gollum, and the evil one crept up and slipped away with her._  
Briefly he feels sorry for Jimmy, even though he is long gone, his body doesn’t deserve this treatment.

 _Gonna ramble on, sing my song. Gotta keep-a-searchin' for my baby._  
He flutters in and out of consciousness. What was it Dean was searching for?  
 _Gonna work my way, round the world._  
Dean could never stop. Not really. It makes Cas sad.  
 _I can't stop this feelin' in my heart._  
Cas feels his heart beat fast, blood pounding. He’s not in control of this body anymore.  
 _Gotta keep searchin' for my baby. I can't find my bluebird!_  
Cas doesn’t know anyone with a bluebird but he’s not surprised he can’t find one, nothing good could survive down here.

 _Ramble on._  
This angel will sleep he thinks bitterly.

*

He wakes up on the rack. Raphael looking down again on his broken, bloody body.

*

“Ready to talk Castiel?" Raphael doesn’t wait for an answer.

"I have so many questions for you. Why have you forgotten God’s path? Why have you chosen man over your brethren? You have forced me to this. Must I really show you how the angels feel?

“I have not touched a bone on your body, Castiel, not an ounce of your flesh. Your brothers do this to you. They are not convinced. They see that you choose this and they do not respect you, they are not persuaded. You are a fool and they know it. The monkeys have duped you. You are not a messiah. No angel sees glory or victory in your actions. What is it that you wish to teach them, to prove to them? You are so much younger than us and yet you think you know better?”

Castiel hears his taunts and knows that Raphael’s voice is reverberating around Heaven. He wonders which of his brothers and sisters cut into him, which beat him, he can guess – Raphael has his henchmen after all, but he is still sickened by the thought. Angels killing each other. Civil war in Heaven. It all hurts so much.

Raphael’s confidence grows and grows the longer he speaks. He convinces himself with the sound of his own voice. _Dick_. Castiel keeps his smile to himself. It might still work he thinks. The angels are intelligent and they respect sacrifice and here is Raphael doing his PR for him. Just stay put he thinks; stay alive. Far easier said than done.

*

“Castiel,” Raphael draws out the ‘el’ in Cas’s name, Cas braces for the taunts, “This is what human beings do to each other all the time. All these methods of torture being used on you. We learnt them from humans. They do worse to each other. We could violate you in so many ways. You already wish you were dead. Castiel, what are you fighting for? Why is free will better if this is what comes of it? Humans are killing each other, maiming each other’s lives, they’re miserable. Even your Winchester boy – he’s miserable. They need to be saved Castiel, they need to be rescued. Heaven is on offer here. Why are you denying them?”

Castiel hurts too much to think of an answer.

Instead he reaches out with his mind - far away from wherever ‘here’ is.

 **FOUR: I Was Your Coffin.**

 _“You are awakened from one dream by another, itself the interpretation of the dream.”_

Dean finds himself on a long, grey road with red buses driving up and down it. There is a small shopfront, pictures of men with short, cropped hair in the window, a black headboard and the name ‘Castiel’s’ across the top. He knows why he is here as soon as he sees it. He crosses the road and stares in through the window. Sure enough he sees Cas through the window having a haircut. The barber is a tad flamboyant Dean thinks, he is wearing a loose white t-shirt and black cardigan and his trousers are ridiculously skinny. His hair is peroxide blonde. He is wielding two pairs of scissors and seems to be applying some kind of gel to Cas’s head. Dean raises one eyebrow, typical Cas to let himself be talked into something like this.

Cas turns then and sees Dean at the window. He smiles with something like relief and gestures at him to come in. “Dean”, Cas’s deep voice is heavy with gratitude, “Is there something urgent we must attend to?”

“What are you doing here Cas?” Dean doesn’t even know where ‘here’ is but he hopes Cas can give him the answers.

“I saw my name over the entrance and assumed it was a sign.”

“Of what? Needing a haircut?”

“That is what Phil here offered and I accepted.” Cas is looking like he rather wishes he hadn’t. Incredibly his hair has been tamed and is now pasted across his forehead in an unnaturally straight fashion. Dean hates it.

The barber is fluffing up the back of Cas’s hair in complete opposition to the now flat hair at the front. Cas tries to move out of the chair but is forced back down by Phil who waves the scissors threateningly. “Hey!” Dean is surprised at the force of his objection. He shoves Phil out the way roughly and grabs Cas’s shoulder. “Come on Cas, let’s make a move.” Cas stands up but struggles to disentangle himself from the barber’s robe and the hairdryer wire. Phil is now advancing on them, his eyes, predictably, have turned jet black. “A fucking demon hairdresser.” Dean swears to himself as he lands his first punch. In lieu of salt, he throws a pot of talcum powder over ‘Phil’. It doesn’t accomplish the same thing but it gives him time to reach for Ruby’s knife and he dispatches the sucker easily. He almost feels bad about it.

He turns to see Cas staring at himself in the mirror, utterly bewildered by what he sees. Dean wonders if he ever even thought about his hair before. “What kind of a demon was that Dean? What did he do to me?” Distress is clear in his tone.

“I don’t know man, that was one fetishy demon. Scary. Seriously though Cas, why didn’t you mojo yourself out of there?”

“Dean, I didn’t know he was a demon. I don’t know why I didn’t sense it. I just thought it would be impolite to say anything.” They stare at each other, both trying to digest this new level of crazy.

Finally Cas asks, “Dean, help me.” He gestures to his hair helplessly.

Dean looks at Cas’s head. It’s freaking him out to be honest and he doesn’t really want to touch it but he spots the sink in the corner and drags Cas over to it. There is a little hose attached to the tap and he pours water all over Cas’s hair. He reaches for the soap and squirts it all over Cas’s head from high above. Eventually he feels comfortable enough to touch Cas’s head and he smears the shampoo in as thoroughly as possible before hosing it out again. He takes a towel to Cas’s head and rubs hard and fast, leaning over Cas’s body as he does it. It feels intimate and slightly awkward. Cas has his eyes closed and is looking more and more relaxed with every passing second. Dean lets the towel drop and sighs in satisfaction at Cas’s damp, unruly, tousled hair. Cas opens his eyes and reaches up to touch it. He breathes out deeply and looks gratefully at Dean. He reaches out and takes Dean’s hand, or rather his arm, just above the wrist. “Thank you Dean, I feel freer now, more like myself.” Dean reaches one hand back up to Cas’s head and brushes his fingers through the mess of brown hair.

He wakes up with Cas’s voice reverberating in his head. Can you hear me?

The next day, every time Dean runs his hand through his hair or sees Sam do it, he shudders. He looks at his hands constantly and pictures them tousling Cas’s hair, mussing it up affectionately. He watches as his traitorous hands tremble at the thought. He has to physically shake his head to get the picture of himself washing Cas’s hair out of his mind. It never stays gone for long. Dean growls with frustration every so often. Sam looks at him like he’s finally cracked. Dean wonders if that is in fact the case.

*

Dean is learning his lines furiously. How is he ever going to get this scene right? The play hinges on this one moment and he’s too nervous to even say the words. _You talk as if you had no heart, no pity in you._

Cas is watching him carefully, waiting for his cue. He is right up in Dean’s face and it’s making Dean really uncomfortable. He wishes he were alone. He wishes he hadn’t got this stupid play to do. Cas frowns a little, “Shall I say my line again Dean?” _Can you hear me?_ Dean nods.

“Punishment can purify us. If God were truly just, man should pray, ‘Smite us for our iniquities.’ Not ‘forgive us our sins’”. Cas delivers the line with all the authority of a warrior angel racing to earth on a chariot of fire. Dean searches for his friend through the bullshit. He steps in closer still and says his lines finally, wonderingly, “You talk as if you had no heart, no pity in you.” Dean knows it isn’t true, even more, he knows that it is his job to bring it out of Cas. Automatically he reaches up to stroke Cas’s cheek, coaxing him. _Don’t die completely_.

Cas’s eyes bore into him as words topple out of him, "You are a wonderful creation. You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know." Dean starts, looks down briefly, then up again, grinning, totally out of the character again. “That’s my line, you dick, and it’s from two scenes earlier.” Cas shrugs helplessly.

They’re never going to get this scene done and they’re never going to get out of here. Dean can’t bring himself to mind. He stares at Cas’s lips as he says his lines again.

*

Cas is twirling in a white dress. It has a corseted top with thin lace straps that cling to his shoulders. It makes his chest and arms look incredible, strong and more than a little ripped – for a skinny guy. The dress spills out at his hips, all the way to the floor where it swirls around his feet and drags out at the back. It looks like a wedding dress.

Cas is in a wedding dress, spinning slowly. Dean is stunned, his heart stutters as his mouth does odd soundless fish-impressions. He’s totally bewildered and more than a little entranced.

*

Cas’s skull cracks again as he is thrown against concrete. His whole body feels like its spinning. The violence and the pain keep dragging him back to this room and his own personal darkness. He tries hard to focus his mind on Dean’s dream. Why is Dean picturing him in a dress? Why a wedding dress? There’s something Cas doesn’t understand here. He tries to think what joke or cultural reference he might have missed that led to this in Dean’s mind but his head hurts too much to come up with anything. He’s seeing a serious amount of stars which are distorting the images in Dean’s brain enough as it is.

He is being dragged across the room again. He pictures a white gown trailing behind him rather than the copious amounts of his own blood. He is hung from his wrists this time. The whip flies into his thighs and his body spins round on the rope. He worries about blood ruining the dress.

*

Dean takes his eyes off the dress _and Cas’s body_ and sees that Cas looks in pain. He is turning as if he is on a revolving podium or something and as Dean looks again he realises that he is on the outside of a giant glass casing - like a snow-globe - and Cas is trapped inside. Dean runs to the glass and pushes his face against it. Cas sees him as he turns towards him and keeps his eyes on him for as long as possible craning his neck as he revolves past Dean and whipping it round so he catches sight of him again as soon as possible. Cas’s expression is a powerful mixture of agony and longing.

Dean beats on the glass furiously until he finally realises he might be able to lift the glass case a little. It’s heavy but he manages to tip it enough to manoeuvre himself underneath. He feels the reverberations as it crashes back down beside him. It’s oddly silent inside the glass apart from the mechanical sound of the revolving platform. He rushes to Cas and lifts up the bottom of the dress. He sees that Cas is tied to a metal pole that is placed between his ankles. Dean uses his knife to cut the ropes that bind Cas and he emerges from under the gown triumphantly. He stands to face Cas, revolving with him on the platform for an instant before grabbing his arm and pulling him onto flat ground. Cas wobbles a bit and looks generally pretty unstable. He leans heavily on Dean’s shoulder. Dean feels the satin and lace of the dress against his clothes and he kind of feels underdressed. Cas’s strong bare arm is all the way around his back, hand gripping tightly to his far shoulder, he rests his forehead against Dean’s cheek and seems to wait for his balance to return.

After a minute he looks at Dean and says, “Help me out of this dress Dean will you?” Dean agrees and moves around to look at the strong ribbon tying the corset together at the back. Cas has to lean his hands against the glass wall to keep himself steady. Dean decides against trying to untie anything and takes out his knife again. Slowly he frees Cas one bow at a time, watching as he exposes more and more of Cas’s broad, bare, back. Cas shudders slightly as the corset unclenches and drops forward. There are red, inflamed grooves on Cas’s skin where the corset has been tied too tight. Something in Dean constricts and the back of his throat seems to ache. He keeps cutting down. As he reaches the bottom of the corset Dean tugs his knife onwards through the seam of the skirt bit. He cuts down over Cas’s hips until the dress falls down completely into a heap around Cas’s ankles, leaving the angel naked before him. Without thinking Dean's hands cover Cas's ass, compelled almost by the curiosity of seeing it displayed so openly. It is still eerily silent in the glass cacoon. Cas’s head falls a little further forward but he doesn’t say a word. Dean moves his hands up Cas’s back over scars but no wings. Dean's hands move on over Cas's shoulders, pressing gently down his arms until Dean’s whole body fits over Cas’s, his hands resting on the angel’s. He turns his head to one side and rests it at the nape of Cas’s neck and lets peace flow through them. He doesn’t try to move.

 _-Don’t die completely._

 _-I’ll try not to._

 _-Don’t die at all._

 _-I’ll try not to._

Cas tries to feel Dean’s weight full against his entire body as he hangs in the dank torture room. He starts at the bottom and tries to imagine Dean’s legs pressing into his own, Dean’s knees slightly above the break in his own legs, the hard zip on his jeans against his ass, the pressure beneath. Dean’s heart beating against his spine, his head nestled into Cas's neck. Cas wants to feel it so much he forgets where he is. The next lash surprises him more than it hurts. He’s grateful it hits his chest and doesn’t hurt Dean behind him.

*

The dream of Cas in the wedding dress has Dean all confused. He spends all day trying not to think at all. About anything. Sam sees the expression on his face and knows not to go anywhere near him. They barely speak all day. Dean concentrates hard on not thinking. He doesn’t think about how Cas is beautiful, actually, physically, beautiful _to him._ He doesn’t think about why a wedding dress would make him think this. He doesn’t think about the feel of the silk against his skin, the look of the corset against Cas’s broad, flat torso. He doesn’t fret about the tortured look Cas gave him or the marks on his body. He doesn’t dwell on his body at all. He doesn’t imagine that his hands soothe and heal Cas. He doesn’t long to see Cas and he doesn’t talk himself out of praying for him every 20 seconds or so. He just fixes his stare on the horizon as he drives and hopes the wind doesn’t change while he’s wearing the biggest bitchface on record in Winchester history.

*

Dean sees the back of Cas’s head at the table in the diner and races over to him. “Hey, Ca-“ He stops suddenly, “Oh I’m sorry Miss, I thought you were a friend of mine.” The girl looks up curiously, head to one side, chin poking forward, eyes narrowed in thought. God this is uncanny, Dean thinks. Her hair is short and messy and her eyes are a piercing blue. All she’s missing is the trench coat he marvels. Dean slides regretfully out of the booth. He gets his food to takeaway.

*

Dean dreams he’s making love to the girl from the diner. She appears suddenly at the end of his bed, her eyes questioning him in a sardonic fashion. He grins and kneels on the bed, reaching towards her. He pulls at her tie - which he doesn’t think she was wearing earlier - and she moves towards him, clambering onto the end of the bed. “Dean”, she says, her voice lower than he expected, “You should show me some respect.” Dean swallows his retort - he really is messed up these days. She pushes him back down and straddles him on the bed. She jerks her head slightly and all of their clothes disappear and reappear on a chair on the other side of the room. Dean looks shocked but she just cocks her head again and says, “Perks.” Dean takes a minute to appreciate her form, for some reason he can only think of words beginning with p to describe her, pert, petite, precious, peculiar. He’s definitely losing it. To feel more like himself, he gets to work stroking up her thighs and over her hips. She’s sat directly over his cock and he’s already hard. She rolls on a condom that he has no idea how she found and she’s about to lower herself on to him when he realises that they haven’t even kissed yet. “Girls usually require more foreplay than this Cas,” he says and he freezes as he notices that he’s called her Cas. She looks him straight in the eye and then stares at his lips for a long time. Finally Dean snaps out of it and pulls her head down towards him, kissing her hard on the lips.

She puts her hands on either side of his head, eventually pulling him back with an impressive strength. She holds his head still, tilted up towards her and she kisses him again, softer, playfully. But with a heat behind it that is making her lips tremble. She releases his head and he surges towards her again, desire burning through him. She reaches down for his cock again, the pressure of her hand feels incredible and his hands scrape down her back, clawing at her skin as she lowers herself onto him. It feels like she’s everywhere, she’s on top of him, around him, along him. She moves herself up and down, slowly, painfully slowly, an almost comically quizzical look on her face, as if this is something she never imagined she’d be doing. “You okay?” Dean gasps. “Of course Dean,” she replies, “I am finding the experience extremely pleasurable.” The formality of her words makes him roar in frustration. Quickly he turns them both over on the bed so that he is on top. He begins to thrust into her slow and hard. He puts two fingers over her clit and rubs in time with himself making little circular motions that one of Sammy’s teachers taught him a long time ago. Minutes later and the girl is quivering from head to toe, arching her hips into him. He smiles to himself and asks, “How are you feeling now.” The reply is a low, guttural, “Deannnnn.” Her eyelids flit closed and her head falls backwards. Her pleasure is gorgeous to witness and yet Dean closes his eyes. He feels phantom lips move down his spine, firmer hands grasp at his hips from behind and begin to pull him apart. There is sensation everywhere. Two fingers slide between his cheeks and into him, lubed and careful. He feels wrenched open and surrounded. Cas, he thinks.

The two Cas speak together, two low voices, one softer than the other, both calling out his name. Above him Cas leans forward, pressing the top of his head into Dean’s cheek, rubbing into him, Dean feels the scrape of stubble against his jaw and neck. He turns his head to look at this Cas, eyes opening again and catching Cas’s glance as he breaches Dean below. Cas blushes, nostrils flaring in concentration as he does so. All three let out a breath of disbelieving pleasure as Cas moves into Dean steady and powerful and Dean pushes further into the Cas below him. Her hand reaches up to his mouth, caressing his lips. It can’t last and when Cas moves up within him one finally time - hitting that sweet place within him that Dean barely knew existed - he comes inside her, beyond comprehension of time and place. He empties himself in shuddering pulses, even as he senses he is being filled up from behind. He doesn’t know how he can feel all this. He holds himself within the girl Cas and continues moving his fingers until she clenches around him and he hears her soft desperate pants calming down. He collapses beside her and turns his head back to look at her.

It’s Cas beside him, male, totally naked and utterly debauched. Cas is looking down at himself in a mystified manner, he is breathing heavily, his chest is heaving and his belly is vibrating with the aftermath of physical exertion. Dean leans towards him, throwing an arm over his ribs, “That was great Cas,” he says as he kisses along his jaw – it really is better than admitting he nearly went blind from bliss. Cas turns towards him, eyes bright and full of something like trust. “Your dreams are so weird these days.”

*

Cas tries to imagine what it would feel like to be with Dean that way. He thinks it would be the opposite of what he feels now; the opposite of alone and exiled and faithless; ridiculed, reviled, and dismissed. And yet, a small part of his belly feels hope kindling at what he sees in Dean’s mind: the realisation that at least some part of Dean wants to touch Cas like that, to be close to him. Or some version of him at any rate. Cas knows he’s not coming out of this imprisonment the same. If he comes out at all. Dean may never recognise him again. For one mad moment he considers finding the girl Dean saw and asking her to be his vessel but he doesn’t know if her body could hold him and he knows really that he would hate it. It was too painful taking Jimmy, stealing his life, his body, for himself. He wonders if that guilt was his first step towards humanity. The need to atone and the knowledge that there are people out there for whom nothing could make up for what he has done. Amelia. Claire. He took from them and there is nothing he can give back that could replace Jimmy for them. Doing that again to another soul, another family; Castiel could not justify it again. This is his body now, his only one on this earth. No wonder they whispered in Heaven that one of his faces was taking on the likeness of his vessel. He was a much changed angel and his human face was a part of that, no wonder it would manifest itself in his heavenly form. He understood that most angels would see it as weakness infusing even his angelic presence but he didn’t see it that way. He thought maybe it signified hope that all angels had a humanity inside them, a freedom, that he just needed to tap into.

*

Sam and Dean go back to the same diner for breakfast the next day. Dean looks for the Cas-girl. He even mentions it to Sam, trying to sound all casual as he explains how he saw a girl yesterday that looked bizarrely like Cas. He regrets it instantly because Sam looks at him like he just told him his puppy died and for a frightening few seconds it seems like he’s going to try and hug Dean. Dean reverts to the deathstare-bitchface he perfected the day before and pointedly eats his pancakes. He gets really annoyed because now he doesn’t know if the girl he saw really did look like Cas or if his mind is just making random strangers look like Cas to him now. He’s so fed up with being in his own head that he just wants a demon to come along and beat his brains in a little until he’s thinking straight again. But then he remembers the demon in the psychiatry hospital and all the dry brains they found and changes his mind. Cas is better than nothing he supposes.

*

All day Dean walks around expecting Cas to show up at any moment. He’s not sure why he’s doing it but it seems ridiculous that he could be thinking this much about him and not have him show up. Every time he turns a corner in the town-he-keeps-forgetting-the-name-of he’s more than prepared to see Cas walking towards him in the opposite direction. When they return to the motel he expects him to be waiting in the room. When they get jumped by the spirit of a scorned bride in the lobby of the town hall later that night he almost forgets to fight back he’s so busy waiting for Cas to pop up and start smiting. Not that Cas doesn’t have bigger fish to fry these days, Dean thinks bitterly. Dean wants to see him so badly, that every time he doesn’t materialise feels like a missed opportunity. _Cas isn’t the girl,_ he thinks. _I am. Cas ignores me for a few weeks and I turn into the massivist, pining, girlie dickwad to walk the face of the planet. Or worse, I turn into Sam._ Dean thinks he may never respect himself again.

*

Dean dreams he’s back in the glass cage pressed against Cas’s naked back. He dreams his hands circle down around Cas, over his rib cage and stomach, over his soft hair, down to the base of his cock. He feels his own cock twitch in anticipation.

And then he feels the air gently rustle.

Suddenly he is feeling very awake but he keeps his eyes firmly shut. His first thought is, ‘Finally! Cas you bastard.’ His second is, ‘This is still a dream, doofus,’ which is why he determinedly refuses to open his eyes.

He doesn’t open them as he feels hot breath on his boxer shorts and fingers pull them down just enough to free his cock. His eyes roll back a little in his head as soft lips greet the tip with gentle pressure. His fingers claw at the mattress as a tongue licks stripes down his shaft and clever fingers tease at his balls. His neck and shoulders curve upwards as lips and even the tiniest hint of teeth nibble and suck round the base and he groans aloud with need just as the tongue comes back up to the tip and laps energetically at the small pool of precome gathered there. Just as Dean’s about to open his eyes to tell Cas to ‘get the fuck on with it’ he’s taken deep into the wet, warm mouth. His ears seem to ring with the sensation of it. He feels tongue swirl around him and fierce lips pump him up and down, bobbing into the hand below which is working the base of his cock furiously while another set of fingers continue to massage his balls with increasing intensity. Dean’s own mouth is wide open, dragging in long gulps of air - like breathing has suddenly become a difficult process - wild, winded sounds filling the air. He comes hard without thinking of uttering a warning, come shooting into the mouth that does its best to remain in place.

Dean’s hand comes down to rest on the head, to muss the hair and pull those lips up for a kiss but the hair feels odd to touch, thicker and more wirey than he expected. He frowns slightly through his sated contentment, panic building. A body crawls up his side and he hears a voice - that certainly doesn’t belong to Cas - drawl smugly, “ _Your_ angel sends his apologies. He wanted me to tell you, he’s sorry he can’t _come_ to you himself, he’s a little tied up at the moment.” Dean’s already closed eyes tighten in horror and then fly open. Balthazar. Fuck. “Balthazar! You fucking flying sack of shit. What the fuck did you think you were doing?” Dean is flooded by rage and a sense of powerlessness. He totally just let Balthazar take advantage of him. Balthazar cracks a nasty smile, “You looked like you needed some relief and I thought I may as well provide. I’m sure that’s what Cas would have wanted.” Balthazar licks his lips pornographically, some of Dean’s come still shimmering on them. Dean groans in despair and regret as Balthazar continues, “And given your lack of agreeable character traits, I thought I should find out what it was that enchanted dear Cassy so much, I thought you must have the world’s most beautiful dick, or champagne-flavoured come or some such. No luck there though.” For good measure Balthazar flicks his tongue over the corner of his lip one more time. Dean stops himself from defending his cock. That is not where he wants this conversation to end up. He’s already recovered from the shock enough to hear the underlying bitterness in Balthazar’s tone and realises there is more a stake here than he understands.

In the end he simply asks the question that consumes him more than any other, even after all that Balthazar has just done, “Balthazar, where is Cas?”

Balthazar looks piercingly at him and then suddenly looks very far away. Dean frowns, feeling worried now, but eventually Balthazar fixes him another, ‘Could you be more annoying?’ look and says,

“Seriously I just blew your mind with my superior blow job skills and all you can think of is where Cas might be? I’m offended.”

Dean glares at him, knowing it would be useless to start throwing punches, however tempting it is.

“Fine,” Balthazar offers finally, “He’s busy fighting Raphael and he may be a while. That’s why I’m checking in with you. An angel’s gotta get his perks where he can.”

Now Dean knows he’s lying. Angels don’t ‘check in’ – that would be unnecessary when they can just use you in their plans as they like and dispose of you after. Dean’s own anger rises as he thinks of all the times recently Cas and Balthazar have treated him and Sam like pawns and lackeys. Balthazar doesn’t seem to want to get to the point of why he’s really here and yet he doesn’t look in a hurry to leave either. Dean figures he may as well try and get as much out of him as he can while he’s here. Dean moves off the bed and puts on jeans and a t-shirt, wiping himself a bit with a towel before he does so - letting out a few more choice expletives to vent his frustration. God, Balthazar is a dick. He feels dirty and a little tainted if he’s honest, like Balthazar just stomped all over something precious. It’s just too close a reminder of Hell.

More than anything he hates to think of all the demons that he rutted with during those last ten years off the rack. Demons that would come by to admire his work, to marvel at the broken seal (he thinks now) and would carelessly offer him their bodies for a few short minutes. He would grab them urgently, the only hope for release in sight, and yet somehow, the closer he got to climaxing, the more indifferent he felt. By the time he achieved a physical release, his mind was back on the torture table considering his next move; the demon in his lap little more than a piece of meat.

In his mind he hears Cas saying, _Don’t die completely._ I’m fucking trying he thinks and he realises that Cas means don’t die on the inside as well as just don’t die. Not for the first time, Dean wonders if Cas really did fix him back together right. All this stuff in his mind that he can’t seem to do a fuck about – couldn’t Cas have given him a free pass on that?

When he turns back Balthazar is grinning slyly at him, he smacks his lips at him one more time. Dean ignores him.

“Where is he Balthazar? What’s going on?” Dean’s tone is urgent and Balthazar can sense they’re not messing around anymore.

“Why?” He asks, “What’s got your pretty knickers in a twist like this?”

The words are teasing but the tone isn’t. Balthazar is asking him for real.

“What do _you_ know? Why are you so worried?”

Dean looks at him uncertainly for a minute. His instinct is to hold back, protect the truth and his dignity, but for once he doesn’t. He’s not sure what it is about Balthazar that however much he lies to them, yanks their chain and abuses their trust, he and Sam always seem to end up trusting him. Dean confesses: “I keep dreaming about Cas. That he’s trapped somewhere or something. I think he might need help.”

*

In his dream, Dean is back in Hell, wielding a silver knife. The body in front of him is held up by its hands, chained way above its head, hanging from a rope. The feet are a few inches from the floor so the body swings a little. Alastair tells him it’s called Palestinian Hanging.

Dean drags the knife over the body in front of him teasing the skin, making continuous, shallow cuts that form a pattern he hasn’t pre-determined. He watches the blood flow out in the wake of his knife. It bubbles slightly, as if surprised at its new-found freedom and then surges down over the pale skin, following pathways on the skin that are invisible to the naked eye. The blood is Dean’s interpreter now. It reads the body in a way the naked eye never could, it exposes the dips and weaknesses and nestles into cracks as it travels down the hanging body. He follows it with his knife, cutting the body along its own contours. When he is done he takes a vinegar stained cloth and with a detached concentration begins to wipe the chest and back to reveal his cuts that are now intricately weaved all over the body. He hears his victim hiss at the sting of the vinegar but Dean still doesn’t look up. Only when he lifts his knife and begins to deepen the cuts from the base of the spine upwards does he hear the groan of agony from the tortured soul. Something in the sound draws Dean’s attention, testing his detachment. He looks carefully at the back and shoulders before him. They do seem familiar. He moves round the body to where the head has fallen forward, chin resting on the chest. The hair resembles Cas’s he thinks. But what is Cas doing here in Hell like this? He lifts up the chin and two blue eyes pierce into him imploringly.

Dean gives a hollow laugh. He holds his knife up to Cas’s right eye. The blue reflects off the sharp silver.

“Do you cry Cas? I’ve wondered, do you cry? I think you do, I think you could. If you cry for me I won’t need the blood. Cry Cas, cry now.”

Cas doesn’t even blink. He looks at Dean with more love than Dean knows how to recognise.

Noticing it feels like fingernails scratching on the surface of his emptiness. He automatically suppresses the feelings that lie beneath the wall he’s constructed so carefully. He doesn’t even know he’s doing it. He fits the knife into the far corner of Cas’s right eye, lifting up the skin there a little. Then he cuts. He pulls the knife out towards the hair line and down in a semi-circle until he reaches the corner of Cas’s mouth. The blood spills down Cas’s cheek, coursing far too quickly over the skin. Dean has not kept to his plan, he has not been gentle, the blood is a thick sheet down the side of Castiel’s face. The eyes narrow with pain but they still do not blink or cry. Cas’s face is a distorted mess, his eye, cheek and lip all hanging loosely down. The pathways are lost, Dean thinks. He leans in and licks up the cut he has just made from the mouth to the eye. Cas shudders, Dean looks at him and then he watches as one tear seeps out of the ripped eye, runs down the side of his nose, along the top lip until it merges with the blood at the corner of Cas’s mouth. And then, even though his eyes are trained on Cas’s lips and he knows they don’t move, he hears Cas say,

 _“Are you alive?”_

But Dean isn’t sure of the answer so he replies, _“Almost.”_ And hopes it’s true.

*

Dean has had this dream before, with other people on the rack in front of him. Mostly his brother; sometimes his mum or dad. Sometimes Bobby, occasionally Cassie or Lisa. He’s even dreamt about cutting himself before. Cas is new. He’s never thought of Cas as someone who could be bound to Hell or subject to his will like that. In the light of day he knows that when he was in Hell he wouldn’t even have recognised Cas if he was tied up in front of him; he didn’t know Cas before Hell. It terrifies him to think of Cas there, Cas is the one who is stronger than Hell.

The image of Cas’s strong, lean, sinuous body stretched out and helpless before him chases him around all day. He pictures the patterns of scars he carved on Castiel’s body, he wants to reach out and soothe them with his fingers, as if tracing them will erase the cuts. Every now and then he catches himself with his hand out, reaching for an invisible Cas, the one that is at the mercy of his imagination. In the absence of Cas, he lifts his hand to his own face and runs a finger from eye to lips in mute apology. There are no words he can think of to go with this.

Dean hates himself. He hates thinking. He wants to rip his brains out. His scowl is the size of the Grand Canyon. He wishes Cas had never pulled him out of hell. He just wants to do his fucking job, help some people, one town at a time. He kills the monsters fast because he’s freaked out about his torture fetish. He doesn’t want it to look like he’s playing with the demon, causing it unnecessary pain. Sam keeps dropping unsubtle hints about talking to “someone” about whatever’s on his mind.

Dean wouldn’t know where to start.

 **FIVE: Dawn on the front line**

 

Dean and Sam stay at Bobby’s for a week in December. Bobby’s supply of scotch slowly drains away as Dean drinks and works on cars and ignores Bobby and Sam muttering about him in the kitchen. Dean hates all angels, he can’t think about what happened with Balthazar without shuddering and reaching for the whiskey bottle. He blames Cas, and himself; always himself. He finally tells Sam and Bobby that he thinks Cas is missing. Not just busy. Missing. He tells them he saw Balthazar and that it seemed like Balthazar didn’t know where he was either. They know he’s not telling them everything but they take him at his word and ask him where he wants to start looking for an angel. He doesn’t have a fucking clue.

They try summoning him but it doesn’t work. Dean still refuses to pray but Bobby and Sam try it. The next demon they come across, they question about the angel. The demon laughs manically for 20 minutes at the mention of Castiel’s name, steadfastly denying he is in hell before adding that “He may as well be.”

Dean reasons that if Death will reap God one day he’ll be the one to reap Cas as well. He wants to ask Death if he’s seen Cas but Sam refuses to let Dean try stopping his heart again. Two weeks later -when they track down a ghost of a small girl in Wisconsin - she repeats as she fades away, “He’s not here, he hasn’t come. She says to tell you, he hasn’t come.” Dean thanks Tessa and feels his grip on reality shatter a little more. No one should be this close to death, no human should cross back and forth as he has done, it could almost seem casual and yet he feels like he is dropping pieces of himself on every plane of existence, losing his footing on earth. _Are you alive?_

*

Reluctantly Dean, Sam and Bobby call on Balthazar again. When he appears, half way between smirking and pissed off, they trap him in flames which Sam and Bobby don’t seem to think is necessary but Dean insists on. They ask him about Cas’s whereabouts. Hearing Balthazar insist, “I don’t know” hits Dean hard in his gut. He knew it, he’s missing. Trapped somewhere. The surprise comes when Balthazar confesses, “You probably have a better idea where he is then I do, lover boy.”

Bobby raises an eyebrow and Dean flinches but Sam stays stock still and stares Balthazar down. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that your beloved brother here is spending his nights pining for our errant Castiel and yet completely failing to effectively communicate through perfectly viable channels such as his own dreams.”

Dean’s brain goes offline.

“You mean, he... he knows what I’m dreaming about?”

For a moment he forgets everything except the mortification of having Cas aware that he’s thought about him, sexually.

Balthazar glares resentfully at Dean. "Next time just ask him will you? Now let me the hell out."

*

As always the plan comes about for lack of a better one. The shrugged look of consent between Sam and Bobby seals Dean’s fate. Somehow he’s going to have to dream himself back to Cas. They all head to the bedroom. Dean is finding the idea of all this intimidating enough but it won’t happen at all if he can’t make himself sleep right now. Dean groans into the pillow. Sam, Bobby and Balthazar stand over the bed, staring at him intently. He can’t blame them. He is a freak-show these days. Only one thought, _Are you still alive?_ Going round and round in his head keeps him from leaping off the bed, running out the house and taking off in the Impala.

He does sit up though. It’s never going to work like this.

“Bobby. The scotch.”

Bobby nods once and leaves the room.

“Sam, get lost will you. There’s nothing you can do here.” He can’t cope with Sam’s _concerned_ face bearing down on him.

As Sam stalks out, Balthazar automatically makes himself scarce, shrinking into the corner of the room. Dean knows there is nothing he can do about the angel’s presence – Cas might need him.

He’s happy Bobby stays though, more comforted at the thought of him keeping an eye on Balthazar than he’d like to admit.

Dean drinks fast with his eyes closed. He tries to picture Cas in front of him. He sees Cas as he had that day in the rain, or thought he had. A memory not a dream. Cas drenched, oblivious to everything except Dean, eyes bidding a silent farewell Dean hadn’t known was coming. It makes him feel angry again. Cas shouldn’t get to decide that on his own. Didn’t he know how much his decision would affect Dean? Did he think he was being noble? That fuck.

Dean is drunk. He stumbles through the rain towards Cas who’s staring steadily back at him. Dean can’t understand why he never reaches him.

*

Raphael is very confident now. Cas sees it in his eyes. There’s a brashness to it that Cas hopes masks hot air. Cas has lost count of the number of weeks he’s been here now. He doesn’t see the faces anymore, he doesn’t remember to search their eyes, he has no more questions for them. They are the arms, like so many angels have spent eternities being. Vessels themselves. Weapons. Slaves, existing only to perform someone else’s will. He knows now their violence against him, their determination to quiet him for good, is the manifestation of their fear. They cling to Raphael as the closest approximation of authority. A decision-maker to stem the tide of their freedom. Raphael takes their obedience as proof of his righteousness.

He moves Cas into the sun - to the heavenly garden Cas always loved. Castiel recognises its scent, the innocence. The simple pleasure comforts him and yet, it doesn’t feel like home anymore.

He feels the eyes of the Host upon him and can only be warmed by their presence. He can barely move his broken body to acknowledge them but he feels concern and confusion radiate from them. Even though the heat of Raphael’s snarling, hot breath is above him and he knows he should focus on this new situation he’s in, he can’t seem to. Instead he hears Dean’s voice in his head, mumbling as if to himself, _“For now I smell the rain, and with it pain...”_

Cas smiles to himself, if he is up here to be executed it may as well be with Dean's favourite song in his head, on his lips, in his heart.

*

Dean dreams he’s in a bar. He looks down at the bottle in his hand. It’s filled with some blue filth - the letters WKD on the label. He has no idea why he’d choose to drink it but then he sees long, pink, hooker fingernails and delicate fingers curl over his grip on the bottle and he understands. The girl puts her jacket on the bar stool beside them and reclaims her drink. She breathes her thanks with a forced huskiness, eyes raking over Dean in a calculating way rather than an appreciative one. Dean doubts he’s what she’s after.Once upon a time, he thinks, he would have cocked his eyebrow and turned on the charm just for the sake of it. He looks away from her, trying to see where he put down his own drink.

“Wow.” The girl says as he turns, “You really must think you’re God’s gift.” He knows the cliché, it’s not even the first time it’s been used in reference to him but he doesn’t have the words to answer her because now, after everything, the words ‘God’ and ‘gift’ feel too loaded. It makes him think too much of Cas – was he _given_ back after Lucifer exploded him? If so, Dean knows he was a gift that went unappreciated and the thought makes him ache.

Suddenly the bar seems oppressively warm. He walks a little around the room, sipping the beer he's eventually located. Everyone is speaking fast, almost having to shout over the obnoxious music coming from the jukebox. Something about fireworks with almost no other lyrics. Dean would leave but he knows he’s waiting for something. Not that he knows what it is.

He watches a boy with blond floppy hair approach the hooker-nails girl he left at the bar. He’s too young for her but perhaps the Rolex on his wrist will see him through.

Three people are playing the games-machine by the door, laughing as they try and come up with answers against the clock.  
Behind him he hears the money plop into the juke box slot machine. He braces himself for whatever insipid dirge will inevitably spew out of it. Does no one except him have any taste in music?

He sighs to himself as he finishes the last dregs of his beer.

But then he hears the light guitar chord, an open E playing above a fast tapping beat. _“Leaves are falling all around, Time I was on my way...”_ He’s already mouthing the words as he turns quickly towards the juke box to see who just put on the song he most wanted to hear.

 _“Mine’s a tale that can be told. My freedom I hold dear.”_ He stops singing when he sees the light brown trenchcoat on the slightly hunched shoulders.

Cas is staring at the jukebox as though willing it to give him answers to the meaning of life, like he’s looking for the one weak-spot on the whole of the death-star. Dean watches him, the lyrics repeating in his ear as the song fades down, _“Gotta keep searching for my baby.”_ And Dean finally remembers why he’s here. He takes the final three paces towards Cas and puts his hand on his shoulder, twisting him around and pressing into him.

“Dean,” Cas looks startled but relieved as he allows Dean to push his back up against the jukebox. “Thank goodness, I didn’t know what song to choose next. I can’t seem to remember any song titles.”

Dean has his hands in Cas’s hair, pulling his head back so Dean can plant his lips squarely over Cas’s. He wants Cas to know he’s being claimed. Cas’s tongue is heavy and pliant against his own and Dean can’t help but push further, bending Cas backwards, fully against the jukebox, buttons squashed down by Cas’s back, Dean covering him completely. Dean pulls away from Cas’s mouth as much as he can, lips still brushing, “Cas, where are you? Tell me where you are.”

Cas looks up at him and his eyes harden with a hint of reproach in them. Dean stares at him until those eyes soften and when Cas whispers, “In a dream,” he can’t resist kissing him again. This is the kind of dream Dean can deal with. He can feel Cas’s dry lips mouthing down his neck, tongue raking over his skin. Dean forgets everything else. All he can think is, ‘He wants me, this angel, my angel, he does want me.’ He shivers as Cas’s teeth graze his collarbone, “Of course,” And Dean hears the ‘you strange human’ in Cas’s tone, “...all for you.”

Dean lets his hands drift under the trenchcoat, reaching round and down, pressing his hands under the belt, finally feeling soft skin beneath his rough hands. He pulls Cas up from there, pressing them closer, erections knocking clumsily together through all their clothes. Dean wonders where all his doubts went, he can’t imagine ever doing anything but this, Cas gasping into his neck, clawing at his back. Dean forgets to keep kissing him back and just throws his arms around Cas, hugging him tight, willing him to be here, for this to be real, for Cas to be safe.

Then, from out of nowhere, somewhere behind him Dean hears an irritated coughing sound. “Don’t let me interrupt but we are on something of a timeframe here. “

Dean looks around. The bar is empty, dreams being useful that way. Except for Balthazar, standing in the corner.

Cas is still clutching at him, seemingly for dear life. He takes advantage of the slightest bit more space between them to start kissing Dean’s neck again, he doesn’t acknowledge Balthazar’s presence at all. He looks up at Dean in wonder and confusion. “Dean, Dean, don’t you want this?”

For a minute Cas looks like the gawky, duck-out-of-water he often used to when Dean first met him, scared like the time in that _“den of iniquity”_ when Dean tried to get him laid. This time Cas looks scared he might _not_ be getting laid. Dean smiles at the thought, his eyes lock with Cas’s and he tries to look as reassuring as he can. He wants it bad but he also wants it for real.

“Cas, you know we’re not really here. Tell us where you are.”

At Dean’s ‘tell us’ Cas finally turns his head away and fixes his stare on Balthazar. “You brought him here against my direct orders?”

Cas sounds more petulant than angry. “Balthazar. You betray me.”

“Cas, we needed to come for you. You’re dying brother. You’re failing. You need to tell us where you are.”

“I’m fine Balthazar. I’m nearly there.”

Cas’s protest and his matter of fact tone rattle Dean more than he’d like to admit. In his head he thinks, nearly there? At what cost? He shakes Cas hard, all hint of the previous caresses gone. “Cas, are you mad? You can’t stay in chains forever. Let me find you. Let me take you away.”

“For what?” Cas sounds heartbreakingly bitter as he goes on to ask the questions Dean thinks he must have known were coming. “So you can run off and settle down with a woman and her kid? So you can go back to forgetting I exist unless you need a favour?”

Dean is ashamed but the jealousy and anger in Cas’s voice fill him with satisfaction.

“Cas!” And now Dean feels like the reproving schoolmaster, “We always want you around. Whenever you want.” He says ‘we’ because ‘I’ feels like too much. And then, as an after-thought, “Life’s more fun.” – which isn’t really true anymore. It’s been ages since he had a laugh with Cas, or even at his expense. But maybe it could be true again so Dean doesn’t take it back.

At the word ‘fun’ the whole dream flickers dangerously. For a second Dean is back in the bed in Bobby’s house and then he’s on his back looking up at a blue sky, he briefly sees a lone kite flying far above him before the bar room comes back into view. Dean sees that Balthazar looks equal unsettled but Cas just looks tired, like this whole pretence is suddenly too much for him, like just standing there is costing him too much effort.

“Yes,” he speaks with an air of wonderment, “I suppose it did used to be fun sometimes. I don’t think I noticed it too much at the time.” He doesn’t sound at all certain.

*

Cas tries to think what Dean can mean. In his half woken, half dreaming state it’s hard even to concentrate on staying present in the bar Dean has dreamt up. It was easier when he was just letting Dean do all the work, imagining both of them and Cas could just go along for the ride. This time though Dean was just waiting for him, expecting Cas to participate. At first it had been wonderful, it had felt unbelievable to see Dean walk with such purpose towards him, no confusion, and press his body against Cas’s. It was simple and strong and Cas wanted it like that – nothing weak or broken or sad – he was his old self and Dean wanted him.

He wonders if he can be the one to control the dream, would Dean go along with it? Cas isn’t sure – when does Dean ever _go along_? He always has an opinion, a better way. He wouldn’t survive five minutes in the barracks, Cas thinks. Cas can’t fathom now how he ever stayed obedient so long himself – that’s how much he’s changed. He supposes he still has the strength to keep Dean relatively obedient in a dream though. He’s pretty sure now that his dream would involve some things they both want. He imagines laying Dean out on a bed, _worshipping_ his body. Cas knows he has a thing or two he could teach Dean about respect and adoration. He fantasizes about those eyes upon him as he uses these lips and this tongue to map every inch of Dean’s body. He knows now that the body can be a cage, that pain can seep through it and damage the soul; and yet, he still hopes, in Dean’s arms, there might be a chance of mending. He knows that if Dean were really to touch him, to grip his shoulders and push into him, it wouldn’t just be this body that felt it. Cas hopes that whatever it is caught within this ribcage could fly free again.

He’s not getting free of Raphael but he thinks perhaps he can save his strength for that one last dream, maybe a white bed looking out over a lake. Calm waters with no monsters lurking.

*

Dean senses the dream wavering. Water starts rising up through the skirting of the room and there’s a bed floating on the water. Dean thinks maybe he’s on the bed rather than by the juke box, maybe he’s naked rather than fully clothed, maybe it’s Cas’s tongue he can feel on his thigh. He shudders and the dream shakes, the water is draining away now and Cas is drenched again as though it had been raining, watching Dean carefully, hand on his chest.

“Tell me where I can find you Cas. Please.” Dean knows his time is running out and this might all be for nothing.  
Castiel shakes his head and a small half-smile starts to form on his face but then his mouth contorts, almost in slow-motion, and panic sweeps through his eyes. Dean watches, horrified, as blood starts to pour from the angel’s side.

*

Dean is yelling, “Tell me, Cas, tell me.” But Cas can’t reply anymore. He’s back in his borrowed garden, the blue sky suddenly seeming a mockery as black pain clouds his vision. He feels the pain of the blade in his side, forged by the host, laced with the silver tar that drains Grace, it’s not enough to kill but more than enough to rip him from the dream. For a split-second he sees Dean in front of him, gazing intently before he’s shouting, “Hold on Cas, we’re coming, we’re coming for you.” And Cas knows it’s the end of the dream but he doesn’t know what it means or if it can come true.

*

Dean leaps from the bed instantly. He looks expectantly at Balthazar. “Do you know where he is? Did you see that?”  
Sam comes clattering back into the room, obviously never having gone far, and Bobby looks from Dean to Balthazar and back again impatiently.

“See what? What did you see?”

“That garden. Where Cas was stabbed. It looked real. It looked like he was really there.”

Balthazar wants to know what the garden looked like and Dean gives him what details he can, which are very few because he really only saw Cas and the blood, but years of relying on his hunter senses tell him that Cas wasn’t alone and that he thinks there was a kite.  
Balthazar’s eyes widen with recognition when Dean mentions the kite although the concern at the edges remains. He disappears for an instant in which Dean is paralysed by hope and irritation.

Balthazar returns, “He’s there. I should have seen it before. They moved him recently. They’re all there.”

“All?” Dean, Sam and Bobby all speak together.

“The host has gathered at Raphael’s request. He thinks he’s won. He must think I’m the only angel he can’t win over otherwise I’d have heard his call too. They are all in Cas’s favourite heaven to witness him fail.”

“Take me.” Dean’s voice brooks no dissent. And yet Balthazar’s answer is predictable: “No.”

Sam intervenes, “How did Cas look?” Balthazar shakes his head. “I didn’t get anywhere near him, it would be impossible without being seen and sensed instantly. There isn’t anything we can do for Cas now.”

Balthazar has got his old, indifferent face on but the Winchesters are used to this front by now. They know Balthazar would die for Cas if he had to, even if he doesn’t know it himself.

“Take me Balthazar, I can get to him, I can save him.” Dean doesn’t know why he says it. It’s not like he knows how he’d do it. He supposes the term, ‘on a wing and a prayer’ is pretty fitting though – not that Cas is a damaged warplane trying to land, but then again, maybe that’s exactly what he is. Somehow though Balthazar seems to think Dean’s right, like he can sense Dean’s determination, or whatever it is, maybe he senses there’s a chance in there somewhere.

“He’s in heaven?” Bobby’s voice rings out low and the significance of his question hits Dean in the stomach. He back tracks, “ _Can_ you take me?”

Balthazar could say no but they would probably see the lie for what it is. Instead he settles for, “I think so.”

“Wouldn’t we have to die to go to Heaven? That’s what happened last time.”

Balthazar shrugs a little. “Well Cas and most of the angels are there in human form. I went in this body. And you are a vessel. Your body should be able to handle it, physically speaking. Although without an angel’s Grace to hold it together it could be trickier. The rest. I don’t know. Your soul, the veil. I’m not sure if it would pass through intact.”

Sam’s look of consternation makes him look constipated. Dean barks out his laughter. He’s past caring about these kinds of risks. His soul is already so damaged. Crossing ‘the veil’ without dying this time might actually make a pleasant change. Besides, Balthazar’s words seem to hold the answer for him. Dean _will_ have an angel’s Grace to hold him together - as long as he reaches Cas in time.

*

The angels have gathered in this garden at Raphael’s request. The host is depleted beyond imagining. No Michael, no Gabriel, no Anna or Uriel. No Lucifer. His absence has always been prominent even after millennia have passed. It is always dusk when they gather now, never morning. Their grief is the strongest when they stand together like this, when there is no hiding from the truth of what they are now. Separated and at war, watching each other warily, knowing that it would never have been like this if their brothers were still here, if they weren’t dead, or locked in the pit. If they hadn’t turned on each other. The uneasiness of the angels quivers through the air. Even in their human forms power pervades the atmosphere around them and the breathless stillness seems to turn the quiet into a terrifying foreboding. Dean feels it from a long way off. He knows he has shifted dimension.

Balthazar lands far from where the angels are gathered. Behind them the little gate to the garden is swinging slightly although Dean didn’t notice going through it. His body feels like it’s in a vacuum. His ears are ringing and a lot of blood is pumping fiercely around his brain. He’s shit scared he will explode before he reaches Cas and that will be the end of it.

*

Balthazar looks into the faces of his brothers. He senses their terror, their anger, and their confusion. He sees how they fear Raphael. They still don’t know how to trust a lesser angel and yet how their experience with Lucifer and Michael and Gabriel weighs upon them. All these archangels, all these leaders are gone. Balthazar understands how the doubts ripple through their minds. They know Castiel has been brought back when none of the others have. They fear that too. They fear being on the wrong side and they long for God their Father, searching desperately for him in this mess. Balthazar feels pangs of grief for his family. How grandly they stand arrayed before him. How lost they seem.

*

There are angels spread before Dean as far as he can see. They are in the same garden Dean saw briefly in his dream and it still doesn’t look like it should hold this many angels and yet they stretch before him facing the centre of the garden from the sky’s farthest corners. Some look like they are in formation, vast rows of angels are filed thousands of bodies deep. Dean couldn’t begin to count. Others are less organised, jumbled up, holding each other or alone, eyes transfixed with concentration. Dean follows their direction and his eyes, painful as it is to keep them open, find a body on the ground, blood seeping into the ground, wounds gaping. There’s no longer a trenchcoat and only the tattered, blood-soaked, remains of a shirt. There are pink sores round ankles and wrists where ropes have been tied. It’s Cas though and of all the living things here he’s the only one that’s breathing with Dean, mouth open, gulping in air as if it was necessary for life.

Dean lurches forward one step, his body fighting the pressure of the atmosphere. It’s like the movement alerts the host and they turn as one to stare at him, Raphael glancing up from Castiel, freezing in shock at recognising _that Winchester human._ The only thing in Dean’s head is _Don’t die. Don’t die. Don’t die._ He tries to put one foot in front of the other, to not notice that the entire body of angels is watching him, a non-dead human monkey infiltrating heaven. Dean supposes they must be pissed off but he can barely register it. He has to get to Cas. _Don’t die completely. Don’t die at all._ It’s like walking on a thin, rickety bridge with a gale force wind blowing against you. Every step takes all Dean’s strength. His body feels as though it is disintegrating. He needs Cas to look up. He needs Cas’s Grace to recognise him. He hopes there is still some left.

*

Cas clings to life with all his might. He breathes in and out, not because he has too but because it’s a reminder he is alive. The deep gulps are comforting even as the air scrapes down his raw throat. There’s no distinguishable pain now, this is just how he exists. He knows not to move. He supposes he will never move again. Bleeding out, he thinks. Maybe it’s like sleeping, like falling. He’s not scared of those things anymore. He thinks that falling might be the most comforting thing he could do. If only he could just keep falling and never stop.

Then he hears it. _Don’t die. Don’t die._ It’s Dean and it’s close. He can’t see him – are his eyes even open? Is it a dream again? Cas doesn’t know if he can make it to the lake anymore. He’s so weak. But he remembers the jukebox. Just one song to make Dean look over. Just one song to draw him to you. _Ramble on, now’s the time, the time is now, to sing my song_. Cas doesn’t sing it out loud, his lips don’t even form the words, but he’s singing all the same and the Host can hear it too now.

Dean hears it. Knows Castiel can feel him coming. He takes up the line. _Now’s the time, now’s the time. Don’t die okay?_ He keeps his eyes on Cas and takes another step, easier this time, one foot after another.

*

The angels look on in wonder. Of all the mysteries they are privy too, all the miracles they have witnessed, this is something they have never seen before. Something connects the two beings before them. They hear strange, human words chanted softly in two minds. They see need and sacrifice and desperation pass between them. They perceive how it blocks out everything else, muting fear and pain and logic. Single-minded and foolish and yet so full of bliss that the angels are awed.

Cas is near dead in front of them. A part of every angel must weep for a brother when he dies. Sorrow does not fade for an angel and no brother is ever replaced. If one angel dies his place in Heaven will be vacant forever. There has never been another Morning Star. The angels know this lesson of old. And yet twice they have felt the loss of Castiel, sundered from their midst, and twice he has been returned to them, grief stuttering into joy - tempered by puzzlement. Castiel is the one that walked into Hell and returned with the Righteous Man, the same man that is before them now. Michael hasn’t returned. Satan never will. But Castiel, an Angel of Thursday, a warrior from the ranks, hollow and broken before them -more human than any of God’s angels before now – he is the one that survives, clinging to life with a power and a knowledge that surpasses their comprehension, he holds weapons that Raphael knows nothing of.

And the man. Dean Winchester. They watch him fight the elements of Heaven, the atmosphere in which he should not exist. Whatever this connection with Castiel is, it’s keeping him moving against all the odds. The angels are not aggrieved at his presence, their wonder is too great, and something in his struggle and his yearning is so beautiful that they cannot resist it. He seems to be lighted from within, in the way they have only witnessed angels to be before. They can only call it love because it cannot be Grace although what’s coming from Cas and what’s coming from Dean is so confused that it could be both. It’s hard and terrifying and if this is why Dean is here, doing this, it’s very, very, costly. But it’s there. And it was Castiel that found it.

The angels start to move, breaking before Dean’s heavy footsteps to clear a path to Cas and Raphael. Raphael is still shouting, swirling around Cas, railing against him. His body is still perfectly up together. His suit is neatly ironed, his shoes have lost none of their polish, but he’s sweating copiously and his jaw moves at an inhuman pace. He’s shouting about God and Michael and pre-destination. He’s insisting that the plan must be played out, that he has humanity’s best interests at heart and that they would all be better off in Heaven – those that made it. The angels don’t hear him. Rows and rows, in their thousands, age-old beings with wisdom beyond counting are watching one lone man, shining with something like love, or something like Grace, make his way through Heaven looking for one angel. Any one of the angels present could kill Dean in an instant. Raphael surely will. Most angels look on with a sorrow born of the inevitability of his death. His bravery is wasteful and incomprehensible and yet he does not seem afraid.

Dean would be terrified if he was thinking about it. He can see Cas clearly now and his battered body has the entirety of Dean’s attention. Dean doesn’t give two fucks for Raphael or any of the other angels if they choose to get in his way. Angels are all dicks. Raphael no more so than anyone else Dean’s faced and Dean’s faced the devil and lived, so Raphael can fuck off and join him for all Dean gives a damn. All he cares about is Cas prostrate and bleeding just a little distance away. _Are you alive? Don’t die Cas come on. Now’s the time._ And that’s the truth of it. This is what he’s fought for. This is why he was determined to beat the devil, why Raphael can’t win now. He wants this, this freedom that can encompass him and Cas. He wants it as much as he’s ever wanted anything. He’s as fucked up and useless as a person can get. He’s screwed it up with Cas over and over again, he’s let him down and pissed him off but Cas has always been there - saving him, fighting with him, being his friend - and now Dean knows it’s more than that, maybe it’s everything. He sees how precious Cas is, how fragile, how unique. He knows now that they are in it together. That Cas wants him. So he’s here and he’s fighting and it is love and Dean thinks that he probably cares more about Sam taking the piss out of him about it then the myriad of things these bags of dicks could do to him right now.

*

Cas sees Dean get closer to him. His blinking eyes shutter Dean in and out of his vision. He’s not sure which image is clearer - the one with his eyes open or shut? And God if he’s not the most beautiful thing Cas has ever seen and if he could remember doing it Cas wouldn’t have a clue why he asked Balthazar not to send Dean after him because it feels like all he’s ever wanted. Cas sees him walking amongst the angels, side by side as if he was one of them and the light coming off him looks as glorious as the light coming from any of the angels. And yes Dean’s fallen and lost and wouldn’t bow down before his maker even if God came down and wacked him on the head; but the light comes from his core, from the heart of his being, it’s instinctive and it rages against evil with a willpower and fire that can only come freely.

*

Raphael rants on. All his ire is being vented over Dean as he approaches. Words spew from his mouth carelessly, even Raphael has no idea what he’s saying anymore, his tongue is so far ahead of his brain. He threatens Dean with every punishment dreamt of in Heaven, Earth and Hell. And yet he doesn’t move. He doesn’t throw Dean back down to earth and set fire to his body. He doesn’t do anything. Underneath his wrath he seems as mesmerized as all the other angels, watching, waiting to see what this means. Nothing he says seems to touch Dean. Dean doesn’t even register his existence. Perhaps that is why he holds back, he wants Dean to know who smites him into oblivion. The more Dean ignores him the wilder Raphael seems to get. His petulance is obvious now and next to the wondrous subtlety of this bond between Castiel and Dean, next to their selflessness and compassion for one another, Raphael looks like a child – peevishly crying about not getting his way.

And that’s when the other angels finally see it: Raphael _knows_ , has always known, they are _supposed_ to be free. God hasn’t just disappeared. He has left because _this_ is his will. They can see it in front of them, the truth of freedom. How hard it is to be free. How hard it is for Dean to battle against Heaven to reach Castiel. Freedom and its price. They see how Raphael panicked, how terrified he must have been, to find he was left alone, to make of life what he will. They see that he chose to keep them enslaved, to be the master, instead of not having one himself. They see how he must have thought he was saving them from the horror he felt himself at being abandoned. They see now that he was wrong.

There’s a great flurry of movement amongst the angels, voices long kept in check, speak their own words, some for the first time ever. The look at each other with incredulity. Are they still allies? Are they still together now they can all decide for themselves? There is so much to feel in this moment. There’s relief – an affirmation of their faith in God. He left them for a reason. He loves them still and wanted them to have this. There’s responsibility – they still have so much power, how should they use it? They could choose to still perform their duties or they could find something that they’d prefer doing. They’ve all seen the ones who left, like Balthazar, who ran with the first glimpse of freedom after the apocalypse, before Raphael reasserted authority. They saw him abandon his post and seek pleasure and choose his friend, Castiel, over everything. They’ve seen Castiel, they’ve called him a child of Gabriel, burnt out, wanting only to mess around with humans. They never understood why either angel could make these human-centric choices, ally with devils and old gods and fight against the will of Heaven. Most of them see now though. They finally get it. These angels are not the enemies of Heaven. Heaven is free.

They also feel the pain of it. How many of their brothers and sisters have died in this time of denial and destruction? The look at each other in shock. Their forms are changing, they look inwards at their human bodies containing their individual angelic forms, marking the changes in themselves. Hoping for clues of who they will be now.

Raphael casts about moaning and shrieking, despair and irritation wrecking his voice. He doesn’t want it to be true, he is the last archangel, he should be holding the authority together until God returns, he’s been doing it for so long without the angels noticing, with Michael long before the almost apocalypse, why should they care now? What will they get from freedom that beats the glory of Heaven? He doesn’t understand them. How can they want this? He looks at Castiel, chained, lying on the grass below, he is still master of one angel in this place. He hates Cas with a fury he has never felt before, nothing about it is righteous, he is full of bitterness and resentment. Castiel has stolen from him. He has destroyed Heaven with his stunt.

He drags Cas into his arms, and begins to move away from the angels. Dean is close now, just a few metres, and he cries out desperately as Raphael backs away. He’s terrified Raphael will disappear in a snap and he won’t know where to find Cas. Some of the angels turn around at his cry. They see what Raphael is about to do and lunge for him. Still their first instinct is to fight.

One angel suddenly rises out of his human form, wings sending bodies scattering in every direction. Raphael has no choice but to respond, he stretches out, his human body bursting into fragments as his angelic form emerges. Dean shuts his eyes instinctively even as his whole body reaches out for Cas. Other angels around Raphael follow suit but Balthazar, who’s followed in Dean’s wake now, reaches for Cas just as Raphael’s human hands lose their grip on him. He pulls him back with all his might, Cas’s shattered body crumbling into his arms. Dean keeps his eyes shut, it feels like a thousand volcanoes are all erupting at once, he gets battered by the wing of one transforming angel and flies backwards, cries being wretched from his lungs as he battles with his need to open his eyes.

He has no idea where Cas is now. He can’t believe he’s come this far to be beaten by the fucking angels’ inability to do anything but fight. He lands with a thud on hard ground and begins shouting for Cas, groping around him to get some bearings. He hears the smallest noise from beside him. Cas whispers his name and though it’s so quiet he shouldn’t be able to hear it he does and his gut unfurls with relief. He feels close to retching. He reaches for Cas, rolling himself over, hands touching gently, feeling for the chains still binding Cas. He feels them tying Cas’s elbows together behind his back, forcing Cas into an uncomfortable position. Dean claws at them, trying to rip or break them. He knows he will need a weapon to break them but he can’t seem to stop himself trying to pull them apart.

An angel comes up behind him and says, “Wait, let me.” Dean doesn’t recognise his voice.

“Castiel,” the angel says, “Brother. Let me free you as you have freed us.” Dean hears a huge smash and the clanging of chains falling to the ground. As he moves away the angel pats Dean’s arm and addresses Castiel one more time.

“Here’s your human Castiel, come to Heaven to rescue you.” There is a world of wonder in the angel's voice.

Dean leans over Cas. Feels for his face, his lips, his eyes. He doesn’t hear his own voice over and over calling, “Cas, Cas, Cas.” He pulls Cas into his lap as much as he can, holding him, rocking his body over him. His hand traces Cas’s cheek eye to lip, soothing scars only Dean can see.

From far away Cas can hear Dean sobbing above him. “It costs too much Cas. Too much.” Dean’s hands fly over his body but Cas doesn’t feel like he’s in his body anymore. He is somewhere else, watching. He doesn’t get to be happy.

“Dean?” And this time it’s Balthazar’s voice he hears. “You need to leave.” He seems to be waiting for something. “Can you pick him up?”

Dean nods. Eyes still closed. He feels the thunder in the air still once more, the pause is heavy, the beating of wings is the only noise. He staggers to his feet carrying Cas with him. Holding Cas up in his arms like he’s some kind of offering. Dean’s terrified. Cas isn’t breathing anymore. Dean knows he doesn’t need to but he can’t tell what it means and can’t help but fear the worst. There are no guarantees anymore, no reason to hope that God still needs Cas anymore. He’s done his job now after all. He starts to pray again as he walks, _Are you alive? Please Cas. Don’t die. Be alive. Be alive. Talk to me. Look at me. I’m praying again, I’m fucking praying._

Cas wonders how to talk. Maybe this is why he needs a bluebird. Is Dean his coffin? Is that what happened? If he’s dreaming in Dean’s belly then he can probably speak he thinks. You can do anything in dreams.

“Dean I’m right here. You can use your voice now.”

Dean nearly stumbles in relief.

“Dean please don’t drop me. I think it would be one bruise too many.” Cas is enjoying the dream a bit now. He can be himself again here.

“I’ve got you Cas. I’ve got you now. Not letting go. Just tell me if we’re going the right way. You do have your eyes open, right?”

Cas lets out a sigh and opens his eyes. Dean really is there carrying him. Cas painfully reaches up a hand to Dean’s cheek. Real. They are walking back through the angels slowly. Dean’s head his held high. How brave he is. How magnificent. Here he is amongst fearsome, eternal beings, walking calmly with his eyes tight shut. Does he even know how vulnerable he is? Cas puts his hand over Dean’s eyes, welcoming the ache in his arm if it means keeping Dean a little safer while he still can.

The angels look on. Raphael’s angelic form is vastly diminished. The panther looks pained and no longer fierce; the yellow of his eyes has dulled. He is watching Dean and Cas like everyone else. Cas fears Raphael’s freedom will be short-lived. How long before he lashes out again and gets cut down. Cas feels pity well up below his hatred. He had always been scared of Raphael, awed by his power, he realises. But now there is no need. Raphael is an angel who got it very wrong. Who missed out on what God wanted him to have. He no longer has any power, it is written all over his faces, each of them sour with misery. Cas knows Raphael was never anything but a son who didn’t know how to function without his Father. He cannot blame Raphael for his disappointment, just for his malice.

From his position in Dean’s arms, head poking out over Dean’s shoulder Cas watches the receding figures of his brothers and his sisters. It feels like goodbye. He can tell who Raphael’s henchmen were now. He can see on their faces the guilt and the churlishness. And he sees the rest of the angels. So many different faces, so many feelings. They all look terrified though. Adrift in a world that lacks fealty, where worship can be meaningless, gods can be hollow, and the choices are endless.

What has happened is too much for Cas to process - he can’t think about what the angels will do now. He doesn’t know how to handle his own freedom, the consequences of these choices he’s made - he still thinks it might kill him. He leans his head down against Dean’s chest, shutting out the other angels. I cannot be responsible for their fates he thinks, not anymore. He has only ever thought about getting this far. Death could come now and there would only be peace and victory in it. Cas would not mind at all but he is just so comfortable here. Perhaps even the effort of dying would be too much when he’s already in Dean’s arms. He closes his eyes again. The blind leading the lame out of Heaven.

Castiel, Angel of the Lord, would never have imagined this coming to pass; but Cas, as much damaged as he is divine - folded in the arms of his friend, his human, Dean - has spent months picturing being held like this, carried towards a calm lake.

Finally Dean reaches the gate and Cas finds the strength to whisper to him, “You made it. We’re here.”

Balthazar is standing a way behind them, watching them leave, making sure they have safe passage. Cas looks back one last time. Balthazar shrugs. Cas doesn’t know what he’d say either. Balthazar’s approach to freedom probably has a lot to be desired but Cas knows that it’s up to him, he’ll make his own choices now, Cas can’t make them for him. He looks back at Dean who is still hesitating at the gate.

“Let him stay here Cas.” Dean’s voice is heavy with a restraint that Cas does not understand fully.

“Dean?”

“Yes?”

“I’m alive.” It’s almost a question.

“Yes.”

“And so are you.”

“Yes.”

“Take me home. We can start there.”

Behind his closed eyes Dean sees a great expanse of water stretching lazily out before him and a small jetty waiting in the warm dusk. It’s too perfect he thinks. It’s too much. But Cas sighs and his thumb whispers along Dean’s jaw line.

“Just one more dream Dean. Just for a bit.”

Dean kicks the gate in and carries Cas through.


End file.
